Question Things: Certainty is an Absurdity

Question Things

Jonathan Davis

Copyright © 2022

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 979-8-9895606-1-5

Table of Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1

Belief in Fate is Statistical Ignorance

Chapter 2

Extreme Narcissism

Chapter 3

Question Time-Management

Chapter 4

Perception is not Reality

Chapter 5

Question College

Chapter 6

Question Your Daily Gratitude Practice

Chapter 7

Question Your News

Chapter 8

Question Honesty

Chapter 9

Question the Truth About God

Chapter 10

Question Orthopraxy

Chapter 11

Question Tithing

Chapter 12

Question Goals

Dedication

To you.

Introduction

Certainty is an absurdity.

-Voltaire

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

-Amendment 1 to The Constitution of the United States

Freedom of speech is not important because making sounds with your mouth is of any significance. Those who authored the First Amendment were not concerned with preserving the right of the people to project vibrations from their vocal cords. Likewise, freedom of expression is not important simply because we have a deep appreciation for the arts.

No, the common denominator within the First Amendment is a recognition of the immense value in questioning the way things are done. Question rules; question values; question your government, question your religion. Question things not for the sake of being a contrarian and not out of a complete disregard for truth. Question things to find truth.

A society that discourages the practice of asking questions is surely on its way to destruction. At one time, I recognized that many of the large-scale problems of our own making that have emerged throughout human history were in some way connected to tribalism. But more specifically, problems arise when we don’t develop our ability to question things within the tribe. Exercising any of the rights listed in the First Amendment involves questioning the way something is done and exploring other ways. This becomes more apparent if we imagine a society that is absent of the rights listed within the First Amendment. Throughout history, there have been many national governments that have not given their citizens the freedom to choose a religion or even the freedom to choose no religion at all.

At the time of this writing, countries like Russia, North Korea, Iran, China and countless more still operate without the freedom of the press. These countries have state-run media provide the masses with one narrative, depriving citizens of the opportunity to hear multiple sides of each story which would allow people to form their own opinions. When citizens have the rights preserved in the First Amendment and don't like the job their government is doing, they may say so in speech. If citizens believe that their message would be better understood or live longer, expressed through music or another form of art, they can make that art; they can make that expression.

In what manor did the authors of the United States’ constitution imagine the people would exercise their right to make their opinions known? By preserving their right to assemble. This allowed the ability to have forums available for discussion. Keep in mind, when the First Amendment was written, there was no Internet, television, radio, or text messaging. Back then, physically assembling and the printing press was their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all rolled into one. So, what would ensure that people living in the year 1787 would be permitted the ability to get their point across? The right to assemble, make speeches, and the printed word were essential for this purpose.

Freedom implies having choices and making decisions, and making decisions means that you can question the legitimacy of one thing over another. Therefore, the ability to question things in a society is an exercise of freedom. Not understanding this principle is why people can be confused about the United States’ being notorious for freedom, even though Americans can't do anything they want such as drive 200 miles an hour on any public highway, or play music as loud as they want, any place they want, at any time of day because these actions have the potential to encroach on someone else's freedom and miss the principals attached to freedom: the freedom to choose, the freedom to change our minds, and the freedom to change other people’s minds. A change in belief and mindset has the greatest impact on a society. Therefore, it is the greatest exercise of freedom. As citizens in the United States, questioning things is our first right. As humans, it is our most powerful ability because questioning things is what initiates improvements.

Trial by Fire

As my mom dropped me off for my first day of high school, she said, I'm going to tell you what I told your brother, Jeremy, his first day of high school: ask questions. Not bad advice, in hindsight. Although, at the time, neither of us understood just how far a person could take that advice in life.

If I had to guess, I think she probably just meant that we should not refrain from asking a question simply because we’re afraid of people's reaction to our question.

Will they think I'm stupid? Did they already address the answer to my question, but I wasn't paying attention? Will the teacher not like me if I ask?

In general, fear should not be a factor in our decision-making process, and asking questions need not elicit fear.

Some say there are no stupid questions. Still, for quite a while I believed that the only stupid question a person could ask was one that they already knew the answer to. However, there is a useful caveat here. Oftentimes, epiphanies come to us immediately as we ask a question to which we already know the answer and in cases when the answer is obvious. All we needed was to have asked this question out loud to ourselves or to others in order to have worked out the answer in our heads, but who knows how much time we may have wasted in ignorance had we not asked the stupid question audibly? Therefore, asking the stupid question is not in vain if it, nonetheless, results in a learning experience.

Before We Begin

During my time as a language teacher, we typically began most courses with a definition of terms. In fact, many college courses begin with a definition of terms. It seems responsible to do the same here. Therefore, Chapter 1 begins by defining the word Karma. Many debates I’ve listened to involved two people who unknowingly agree on certain fundamentals but are distracted by arguing over the vocabulary. That is what we want to avoid. Additionally, throughout this book, we will try to avoid the use of technical jargon in the hopes of avoiding unnecessary distractions. This will also serve the purpose of assuming nothing on the part of the reader and forcing me to explain everything.

When giving a lecture, I would often paraphrase. I’d intentionally say the same thing twice but in a different way in order to drive home the concept for some and to provide another opportunity to understand for others. You may notice that I do the same thing when I write.

As a teacher, I believed it to be my fault when students struggled to understand material I was teaching. Indeed, many times, the one who is at fault for students asking stupid questions is the teacher because it is the teacher's job to figure out how to put new information into minds that are naturally opposed to change.

Still, teachers are not always to blame. Afterall, it’s impossible to predict the minds of all people or to address every learning style in every lesson. Not to mention, some students are, in fact, at fault for simply not paying attention. Then, there are those who actively and aggressively resist change. These students are not ready to learn through any style and must be primed, prior to being taught.

Whether we realize it or not, this is one of the reasons that arrogance is a problem at all, and it’s why we find arrogant people to be so annoying: Humans have a natural tendency to appreciate the concept of learning, while viewing arrogance as a negative characteristic because it shows that one is not ready for learning. And an unwillingness to learn, makes a person frustrating to be around.

One might ask, "In addition to teachers just giving information, can't they become skilled in methods for priming student minds? The short answer is yes. In fact, priming is what we're engaging in right now. Practicing our ability to question things is essential in our ability to learn, maintain healthy communities and relationships, innovate, and so much more.

Keeping an open mind is a skill. In developing this skill, we learn that life is merely a process of sharing ideas. Life should not include criticism, choosing sides, or an effort to be right. Take on the permanent role and mindset of a learner, and you won’t need to fear the embarrassment that comes with being wrong.

All throughout history, we’ve had the tendency to believe that our individual ability to question things is better than it truly is. A professor by the name Robert George was said to have conducted a thought experiment with his students which involved asking them the question,

If you lived in Alabama in 1861, how many of you would be an abolitionist? (oppose slavery)

Of course, everyone raises their hand.

To understand the importance of questioning things, all one needs to do is study the horrors that emerge when people fail to fulfill their societal duty to question things. Think of the number cults that accrued a following and the mass suicides and sexual assaults that have taken place within them. Consider the many research studies that have been conducted to make sense of how so many people in Germany were able to go along with the narrative that was fed to them by the Nazis.

The Nazis were not left wing or right wing, radical, extremists, as we view them today. Now, just the mere word Nazi elicits a harsh feeling within us.  But at one time, that was not the case. The word Nazi was relatively new to many people’s ears, and the Nazi government in Germany was thought of as just the government. Many of the people in Germany failed to question the agendas, mandates, and restrictions on a scale large enough to prevent what was to come, as so many citizens in so many countries have done and will continue to do.

Questioning things is an indication that you are primed for learning. By questioning things, you will either reinforce existing ideas or form new ones. Either way, you win, as you become more accurate, fine-tuning the skill-craft of thinking because thinking is, indeed, a skill that requires practice.

As you become better at thinking, you will be better at differentiating emotions from thoughts. Understand that feelings should be factored into any equation, but emotions should never cause us to overlook information and guide us to an answer. Indeed, both thinking and feeling are two important factors, but we must be able to differentiate the two.

Practice thinking; practice thinking in politics, religion, relationships, and in all matters in life. This book challenges the way we were told to think.

That notion is incredibly uncomfortable for many us. But rather than becoming upset, if we stop and think, this creates new neuropathways that make dealing with the same situation easier in the future. Practice pushing through the desire to take the easier path. Interrupting others, slamming our fists, raising our voices, the desires we have to deal with problems using our emotions rather than sober-minded judgment are all forms of neurological laziness. Understand that aggression, frustration, and similar emotions are not us dealing with problems; that is us avoiding problems. Some emotions are just the path of least resistance. Slamming our fist on the table is not us dealing with a problem. It is the body avoiding the fatigue and discomfort it knows the mind will experience if we force ourselves to think through a situation.

The process of thinking through matters is uncomfortable. The more unpracticed we are at thinking through problems, the more uncomfortable the will be. On the bright side, neuroscience has proven that the more experience we have in dealing with uncomfortable thoughts, the easier it becomes.

How to Keep an Open-Mind

The following are 10 points to consider while trying to keep an open mind and listen effectively:

Attachment

Tribalism

Identity

Investments of time and energy

The contrarian

Confirmation bias

Barrier-to-exit

Yeah, but guy

Definition distractions

Ego

Attachment

Attachment is related to the first four concepts we should consider when keeping an open mind. Be aware of feelings of attachment when holding to a belief. It seems necessary to go over some of the physical processes involved in attaching ourselves to an idea so that we know what to look out for. The following may be an oversimplification of the physical processes involved in attachment, but going too deep into the subject may bore most readers out of continuing. So, we’ll try to be brief.

Sometimes referred to as the love hormone, Oxytocin is a hormone that is produced in the hypothalamus and released into the bloodstream by the pituitary gland. Oxytocin has been found to be released during childbirth, when spending time with family, feeling a sense of nostalgia, coming into possession of an object that we feel a close connection to like our first car or a childhood blanket, and so on.

The hormone oxytocin, therefore, can fuel our desire to experience certain attributes of tribalism. This means that our endocrine system is sometimes working to create an emotional environment that is not the best state for learning, or more specifically, not the best state for changing our minds. It’s not that the human body has an error. The body simply requires training in some areas.

Tribalism

In order to develop your ability to question things, the first step is to practice being able to quickly identify the feelings associated with tribalism. Teaching with Testimony defines tribalism has been defined as behaviors and attitudes that stem from loyalty to one’s own social group. A tribe can be a church, ideological movement, group of friends, neighborhood community, workplace social environment, political affiliation, and the like.

There is some debate over whether human’s natural desire to feel a sense of tribalism is a net positive or negative. At one time in history (perhaps today, in some places), it may have been necessary to be a part of a familiar group for the purpose of security. Being socially ostracized or outcast from a group left humans exposed to all sorts of possible calamities such as being attacked by neighboring communities, traveling groups of thieves, wild animals, environmental hazards, or the psychological damage that comes with long periods of social isolation.

On the other hand, our ancient, bio-evolutionary tribal tendencies can cause us to unfairly be weary of people who look, act, or think different from us. Being vulnerable to attack from neighboring villages or sabretooth tigers is much less a concern today than it was thousands of years ago. Still, our subconscious desire to identify with and be accepted by a tribe can cause us to experience prejudice in nearly every aspect of life, even when it seems completely ridiculous. Tribes are formed around not only religious groups, political parties, and sports teams, but also trivial things such as smart phone companies and diet programs. Some people form rather deep rooted opinions of others based on whether they are Apple or Android users. Which isn’t to suggest that the other forms of tribalism are not equally as trivial. Humans have got to be the only species dumb enough to find someone with a common interest and hate them for it:

Hey, you like football? That’s great! I like football too! Wait, you’re a Stealers fan? Now, I hate you. Please hold still while I smash this bear bottle over your head.

Sadly, toxic manifestations of tribalism have led to some of the world’s largest problems such as racism, ethnocentrism, gang violence, multi-generation family rivalries, war, and many unjust forms of discrimination. The debate over the positives and negatives of tribalism deserves its own book. For now, we need only to be aware that it exists within us and question its involvement in the decisions we make.

Identity

Be careful not to identify with ideas. Ideas are just ideas. Avoid statements that begin with I’m a… then filling in the blank with the name of a religious group (Christian, Catholic, etc.), political affiliation (Republican, Democrat, etc.), or ideology. For one thing, all of the people you speak to have a different understanding and definition of those words you’re identifying with, so it doesn’t give them an accurate idea of who you really are, and there is no sense in wasting time arguing over words with someone who likely shares your goals for society, in general.

For another thing, the definitions of those words change. It is unwise to take responsibility for 100% of the actions and ideologies of others when we only agree with 70% of them, when we don’t know what the ideology of those groups will be in five years, and when not even the people in charge of these groups agree on what their ideologies are at any point in time. During the Clinton administration, the democratic party was running on a platform of being tough on immigration in order to protect American jobs. Later, the Republican party reversed roles with the democrats and became synonymous with being tough on immigration. Later, the democrats took a position against same sex marriage as late as the early years of the Obama administration. Then they again reversed their position.

Hi, I’m Jonathan. Anything specific you want to know about me, just ask. Come up with your own values and resist the desire to identify with a group.

Investments of Time and Energy

As if we didn’t have enough barriers to changing our views, we are far less willing to abandon anything that we have invested time and energy into. Be sure that you haven’t become attached to something simply because you invested time and emotion into it.

I have friends who were reluctant to take money out of projects long after it became clear that the project would flop. The reason that they didn’t let